heart rhythm

[GrannyE]

Does this look normal to you?

[mjames1]

Not clean, but I've seen similar on my Kardia and was in normal rhythm. Not a medic, but evenly spaced intervals and P waves. All good.

[frazeej in reply to mjames1]

How can you see the P waves among that jumble?

[GrannyE in reply to frazeej]

they are difficult to see but they are there. It was the jumble in amongst it which bothered me. As far as I am aware there was no interference and at the beginning it was OK and at the end it was OK but I could not explain that middle bit

[frazeej in reply to GrannyE]

I would say "difficult to see" is quite the understatement. If you say everything was OK at the beginning, and OK at the end, I would venture to guess that your phone did some sort of automatic upgrade or something during the trace.

[GrannyE in reply to frazeej]

maybe but would it be long enough for that? I am often unclassified, or A/Fib or supraventricular, just normal sometimes - often with funny bits between the normal bits of the trace.

[frazeej in reply to GrannyE]

I am not a cardiologist or an electrophysiologist, just a retired scientist familiar with medicinal chemistry and physiology after 39 years in the field. BUT, all that being said, any opinions I proffer are personal, and not professionally qualified. Again, the only thing I can see from the brief glimpse you've given us from the Kardia trace is the R waves are uniformly spaced and the R-R spacing indicates a normal rate. This is good, and would probably preclude an afib episode. The jumble of peaks between the R waves is truly a jumble, and I can discern no P or T waves amongst the jumble. The most important thing when you look at this graph is........how do you feel? Anything different from the usual palpitations? That's kind of the bottom line, at least for me. When I get a crazy ecg, like yours, I usually just redo it in a slightly different location, and get a more normalized trace.

As an aside, I will usually get a trace classified as "unclassified" when I will have a short run of PVC's. That is pretty easy to pick up as the R waves are irregularly spaced, but not like afib. Also, then, I think the Kardia algorithm for HR will give me an erroneously high HR, which I can debunk with the old fashioned "pulse on the wrist", which in a 30 second measurement is in the "normal" range.

[GrannyE in reply to frazeej]

thanks for replying. My heart sometimes feels sort of ‘fluttery’ and not quite right and sometimes I get ‘thumps’ and when I do something that should be easy for me I become breathless. Sometimes however when I am sitting quietly I forget and I feel as if I could do anything but unfortunately no longer can. That of course is partly due to old age although most of the time I don’t feel old in my head.

[GrannyE]

no noise from anything near, but it is a thought

[CDreamer in reply to GrannyE]

when we say ‘noise’ we mean EMF= Electro Magnetic Field so any piece of electrical equipment or that you haven’t put the filter on or there was movement or you have something like a pacemaker, which I do, and get Kardia readings which look like that when my pacemaker is kicking in. It’s not active all the time, only when I need it.

[GrannyE in reply to CDreamer]

i am very lucky in that I do not have a pacemaker.

[CDreamer in reply to GrannyE]

🤗 I feel very blessed that I do!

[GrannyE in reply to CDreamer]

I can imagine

[frazeej in reply to GrannyE]

You might not have a pacemaker, but you have some kind of interference that makes this Kardia virtually unreadable. Move to a different room, don't have your phone on a charger.

[mhoam in reply to CDreamer]

Yes, I can’t use my Kardia on my bedside table as it’s next to a DAB radio that is switched off!

[OzJames]

my Apple Watch does it sometimes when I have a poor finger contact. I just repeat and looks ok

[GrannyE in reply to OzJames]

might be poor finger contact. Thx

[frazeej in reply to GrannyE]

Make sure you wet your fingers, and no talking or moving during the test. Not in front of a TV, either!

[GrannyE in reply to frazeej]

no i don’t move or talk during taking kardia readings or doing my bp. Must admit I don’t always lick my finger tips

[Ppiman]

It looks as if there was interference - perhaps your fingers were overly dry? I believe that Kardia labels heart rhythm as "normal" (i.e. NSR) if it is a) regular and b) initiated by the heart's pacemaker, the SA or "sino-atrial" node. This produces the tiny blip (or P wave) you can make out just before the large blip (the R wave) on the tracing.

Steve

[GrannyE in reply to Ppiman]

could be. I sometimes lick them before taking my Kardia reading

[Ppiman in reply to GrannyE]

Make sure they are not overly wet, though - just naturally damp. I think all home ECG devices that don't use electrodes tend to suffer with electrical interference caused by a less than perfect skin contact, but their software is most often able to hide this by smoothing out the jittering and bumps. My own Kardia always starts with a very messy looking trace before smoothing out after a few seconds. The Apple Watch is different and much smoother altogether, but it fails to work sometimes when the wrist is sweaty. As you are using the Kardia 6L, this uses Bluetooth to communicate with your phone, so there shouldn't be any disturbance from other Wi-fi sources, but things like a microwave cooker can interfere.

I've just treated myself to a Wellue AI monitor which uses ECG electrodes on the chest to produce a much more accurate reading. That also gives a very much more comprehensive report than the Kardia, too (and for free!).

Steve

[GrannyE in reply to Ppiman]

thx

[BobD Volunteer]

Mostly interference. Try cleaning your hands with sanitiser first.

[GrannyE]

Thx.

[Rosie1066]

I get this sort of reading quite frequently on my Apple Watch and I ignore it. Due to having had a heart valve replacement some years ago I hear every heart beat and it doesn’t often sound anytime like this sort of reading.

[Margareta3]

Have you got smart meters at home?

[GrannyE in reply to Margareta3]

no. We are not that modern!

[GrannyE]

It can get better and worse from the same spot but I am aware of what you and CDreamer mean. Mostly I don’t need the kardia to tell me that my heart is playing up - it just confirms it